When to Shut a Campaign Down

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LazyD

LazyD

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Dec 7, 2006
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So im sure you all have different opinions on this, but when do you just say "Fuck it" im done with this campaign and move onto the next one?

I suck horribly at marketing and have yet o have a profitable campaign...

Anyway, ive been told that once you spend more then payout in Adwords its time to shut it off...

Im sure no one will tell me because, well I dont think I would tell anyone either, but how can you make any money off dating offers if they pay like $3 a lead but Adwords ads are costing like $0.85 a click for 1st and 2nd page results? You would have to have one hell of a conversion to keep that profitable...

This is getting really frustrating, it seems like im getting on every bandwagon late and when its falling apart and no longer profitable... Throw in the fact that I apparently dont know how to select an offer and spend hours browsing random things on affiliate networks...go me
 


Dating is a saturated market on adwords. You really have to know what you're doing before jumping into that (or mortgages, viagra, etc.). The margins on the more saturated markets could be razor thin .. so people making the most money have it down flat.

I think Jon mentioned having a time guideline... I think this was 2-3 months (see the latest lightning round thread) .. of course that whole time you're tweaking and optimizing.

It's up to you when to stop trying. But if you haven't tested every single option then there is obviously more you can do.

And keep in mind Adwords isn't the only option out there. A campaign could be more profitable on MSN or YSM than adwords. How about building free traffic? The dating niche is ripe for the picking with viral marketing and something that I will try soon myself.
 
To better explain the over-saturated Adwords thing... Say there are 100+ advertisers for dating. Everyone knows the lead payout is great, so while competitive, a certain percentage will be adwords pirates ... ninjas.. or whatever you want to call an expert.

With enough experts getting "Great" quality scores on Adwords, their playing field is level... so they are competing on CPC alone. But their playing field is in the sky, while most of the other advertisers, especially newbies are still on the ground. Their account history (while not a major factor) can't be matched. For the most part, if you don't have the bankroll to play with them you are screwed.

edit: i'm also talking out of my ass so take what i say with a grain of salt.
 
I'm new as well, have many questions and much to learn, I'm just explaining what I've been doing. As it's been mentioned, dating is a competitive saturated market. You should always try to think of low competition niche markets, especially since you're new.

I started about 8 different campaigns in the past month, and I have a low budget, but I keep my bids low. I keep tweaking them and working on them, and whichever campaign I see any results on at all, I pay more attention. Out of these campaigns, two of them are showing minimal results. I had another campaign just like yours, a dating campaign for free offers. I made about $5.85 the first day my bids were at .30 a click. The next day or 2 I didn't get any sales and closed it, since I would end up losing. I was thinking the same thing about payouts on offers and the cost per click on search engines. I'm not sure how people make money from these, but I think it's since most people use a different method for those sign ups, probably a link on a high traffic site, e-mails, or a site with many different offers on it, not sure of what else. This method could probably work with PPC on a market that wasn't as highly saturated. You mentioned about bids for Adwords at $8. That's probably a broad term example: "love", or "dating" I wouldn't bid on those keywords at this level, unless if I was sure my sales would convert, but even then that's not my budget. Even if you did bid that much that doesn't guarantee you're going to get conversions, there's too many variables. You want to look for targeted 3-4 word phrases. Example: "find a date online today" (just an example, I'm not good at this), instead of just a 1 word broad term, "dating". Search for targeted phrases.

To sum up:

Keep thinking of low competition niches, and trying to find them. I keep thinking of new niches while working on my current campaigns. If I start to see a campaign with results I switch over to it and close the ones that aren't performing. If I don't see results, I'll just keep on working with what I have until I can find a niche that I see results from. I also just keep running a campaign even if it's losing until I can't afford it lol

Edit:

I'd like to note that, you should think of your traffic/clicks as customers walking in your store, on the screen you just see numbers, but it's much more than that. Ideally, you want every customer to purchase your product. It doesn't always work like that, but that should be your goal. If you see one unsatisfied customer walk out of your store, you should think to yourself, why is that person not interested in your product/services and what you can do to change their mind or improve your business.
 
Screw low competition niches. there's a reason why they're low competition... no one gives a fuck.

You gotta change your mindset when doing AM. instead of saying "how hard something is b/c of competition", you gotta say "What can I do to be successful in this niche?". I guarantee you that any niche can be made profitable in PPC. If it isn't, why are people still bidding like mad for em?
 
mason said:
Screw low competition niches. there's a reason why they're low competition... no one gives a fuck.

I said LOW competition not NO competition.

All I know is that when I started posting on here about my campaigns not succeeding and being in a high competition niche. All I heard from everbody was, "Why are you trying out a high competition niche, when you're new?", and "This is the reason so many new people give up and complain about no money being in affiliate marketing". That's the only reason that changed my mind, and based on what I'm seeing with my own campaigns they're correct.

Ofcourse this isn't enough to live off (hell, I think I'm still losing due to my testing and tweaking), but I'm still learning and seeing sales, now just have to find out how to tweak my campaign. Just because you're running a low competition niche doesn't mean you're not continuing to learn how affiliate marketing works, which is the most important aspect. He can't just jump right into a high competition market and start spending money, which he would have to, to test his campaigns.

So, he should test his campaign with markets with less competition, just because it's a low competition market, doesn't mean he can do better than his competitors, he still has to know what he's doing. Which will help him learn down the road, kind of like you start at Elementary School, Jr. High, High School, College, etc.. it's all a learning process.

Yeah, maybe a low competition niche won't make you much money, but what if you have hundreds of low competition niches?

Edit:

Another reason I advise to find low competition niches, is that, doesn't every idea, program, product, etc.. start out small? It's when everybody finds out about it, and wants to make money from it is when it gets big. You want to be able to get a big part of those sales when the majority of the affiliates don't know about it, and eventually it will get to the point where everybody knows about it, and the market gets saturated and you continue this cycle with another program.

In my opinion, when we speak about a "high competition niche", to me it seems that it's regarding the competition between us, affiliates. If it's a low competition niche, to me, doesn't mean the market or product isn't good, or an opportunity to not make money, it just means there's less affiliates that are aware of that idea/market.

It's not to say you can't make money in a high competition niche, but you have to know what you're doing, and if you don't, you have to start out small, or work alongside while you're learning.
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Hey dude I am a newbie too. I started on my google and yahoo with $50 vouchers. In yahoo I am left with $3 with no leads or sales. For yahoo I have used very specific terms and linked it directly to the merchants landing pages. There landing pages are very good (south beach diet - free trial and more) yet no conversions. I have stopped all my campaigns atm. I need to learn a bit more from this forum and get it done started again. I think it is safe to close it if you have made 20-50 clicks with no leads and about 100 clicks with no sales. I dont know but correct me if I am wrong.

The best way is to go for low bids and highly specific words.
 
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